“What?”
“A woman searcher?”
“Good Heavens, no!” I cried. “If you had troubled to read those papers you are holding you wouldn’t have thought that. Your people arrested my husband last night because they found ammunition....”
The look of horror on his face stopped me. I glanced all round at frozen faces. Everybody seemed to have been turned into stone. At last the spell was broken. My mysterious acquaintance jerked himself to life and pushed me out of the room.
“The wrong department,” he hissed. “Good God, you should never have got in here!”
The Tommy slid slowly off the window sill. “All right?” He seemed an old and tried friend.
“The wrong department,” I said drearily. “Why, don’t you know your way about your old Castle?”
“It’s a tricky sort of a place.” He scratched his head at the thought of its trickiness.
An officer was crossing the yard. I hurried after him, stopped him, and poured forth my wrongs. He listened attentively, guiding me as he walked by my side with gentle motions of the hand.
“Room 13,” he said with a smile, as we stopped outside it. “I think you will find what you want in here.” He knocked on the door and went in, leaving me outside. Presently he came out again.